Not quite a full stop . . .

 

Not quite a full stop . . .

. . . but something has made me slow down. It may be to do with having a thirteen-year-old in the house who keeps strange hours. I’m a light sleeper and easily woken by noises in the night. I know which doors are opening and closing, which stairs creak, and while everyone else sleeps through them, I cannot.

The next couple of days will be devoted to retraining the lad’s adolescent brain to the more normal rhythm required for (whisper it) school, before he returns to London.

Teenagers experience many changes in their lives – the body developing in startling ways, the mind posing problems and not solving them, social hurdles, academic expectations, misconceptions, skewed perceptions, peer pressure, and the awful awareness of self as neither child nor adult, not fitting any group, perpetually on the outside looking in. The grass is not greener on the other side, but it seems like it.

Add to this the change in their circadian rhythm which means that melatonin is released around two hours later than for adults or young children. This results in them wanting to stay up later and sleep longer in the morning, often in direct opposition to a requirement to rise early and prepare for school.

It is recommended that teenagers have eight to ten hours sleep a night, while they are still growing and their brains are developing rapidly. Fewer than seven hours a night leads to exhaustion, irritability, and difficulty in coping with the demands of family and school.

I remember my early teenage years, but not with great pleasure, so I have sympathy for my adolescent and pre-adolescent grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

They will survive.